curb appeal??

Okay, I've been talking about showing overviews of the gardens. I've been playing with Mark's cameras, trying to learn how to use them more effectively. I think I'm doing much better on the close-up shots. But big-space photos were the pits. Mark finally got through to me: different settings on the camera!!! I think I'm starting to get it. So for the last couple weeks I've been practicing and when I asked Mark to (kindly) critique my efforts, he had some ideas for blog posts that made a lot of sense. So a week or so ago, he took a ladder and did some shots for me that show the gardens from above. That's where I'm going to start.

The second problem was sorting through dozens of photos trying to pick which ones show what I want to show. So my next decision was to show a different area of our yard in each post. I have a lot of gardens, so if this is boring, just come back in a week or two, and I should have it out of my system!
When you live on the lake, the street side is considered your back door. Our street is like a little paved alley - you pull over if you meet a car and let it pass. Because there is no on-street parking, we have a driveway going the entire width of our property along the street. To keep the dogs in the yard, and to make a clear border between driveway and house, we put up an iron fence that Mark made, and we have paver stones on the patio. When they did the patio area about 3 years ago, they also made me a couple raised planting beds that are lined with limestone. It's nice to have some perennial spaces along with container plantings.

This first photo is the entry to the patio: window box on the fence, gate (with welcome sign), paver walkway going either to garage side door or to steps down to patio. The raised planting space has some fun stuff: siberian iris, dwarf bearded iris, geraniums, mountain bluet, asiatic lilies, daylilies, Hawkeye Belle rose, hibiscus, yarrow, veronica - and probably a couple more things I can't think of right now. I wanted color there throughout the season rather than a big splash of color for a short time. So, at times it is showy, at others not so much - but I'm pretty happy with it. Oh, and can you see my cool iron bench? The previous owner left it for us when we bought the house - it's very old, and I love it. The gate in the garden is from a neighbor - it's old and fun too.

The grill doesn't add much - lol - but it's close to the kitchen and is usually sheltered from the wind - so it's staying. The caladium in the iron planters have been phenomenol this year.

This shows the other side of the patio: door that goes directly into the kitchen (so handy - NOT!), a small metal table and chairs, great iron urn by the door, and the other raised planting bed. This planting space is shadier and has goats beard, The Rocket ligularia, daisies, asiatic lilies, ferns, geraniums, and a ton of daylilies.

This shows a view from the street - we put the half-barrel planters in to try and deflect some of the big truck traffic from a construction project across the street. The first one has a rose and filler, the next 2 have cannas and filler, and the last one has purple fountain grass and filler. They actually look way nicer than just having a big ugly driveway space and if we decide to use them next year, I'll spend more time making them look nice!

The house: the flat roof needs a railing (still deciding on a design and when on earth we'll have the time to actually do it - you know how that goes!), but I have 4 iron urns up there. Two have double red impatiens and 2 have Boston ferns. I bought the ferns at Home Depot for $12 each and they have been fabulous! If I find them again next year, I may do all ferns. The construction project across the street involved taking down most of the trees, so we now have views from this side of the house of the sun setting. I'm thinking when we do get a railing put in, I may put a bench up there for sunset viewing - that would be fun!

(some or all of the photos should click big, I think)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (yesterday), RYAN & SARA!!